


My Sweet Joy, Always Remember Me

by Sir_Bedevere



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 01:45:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, he forgets their faces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Sweet Joy, Always Remember Me

**Author's Note:**

> Also known as 'Bedevere needs to write something where Rickon is alright because she can't deal with the not knowing'. 
> 
> Set before the revelation in ADWD obviously. 
> 
> Title borrowed from The Noisettes

Sometimes, Osha forgot that Rickon was barely more than a toddler. The boy had been forced to grow up so quickly that he acted as one far beyond his years. The last time he had cried was when she had sent Shaggydog away. She’d hated to do it, the little boy’s sobs affecting her more than they should, but it was for the best. She was passing him off as her son, just another pair of wildling refugees, and wildlings didn’t keep direwolves as pets. She suspected the wolf was still close though; some nights when she couldn’t sleep and stood at the door of their tiny house on the outskirts of the village, she swore to the old gods that Shaggy was slinking through the woods, just out of the light. Well, that was fine, as long as he stayed there. It was oddly reassuring to know he was still around.

It was on one of those nights that Osha remembered quite how young her charge was. She sat on the ground outside the cottage, wrapped in her furs. The village was quiet, something she was glad of. When she and Rickon had stumbled across the half abandoned place, the locals had been wary at first, but once they realised the pair of them weren’t a threat, they pointed her towards an empty cottage and a local farmer who was only too pleased to take on two workers. 

All in all, she often reflected, they had been lucky. Too lucky, really, which is why she slept little and kept Rickon away from the other children past nightfall. She was painfully conscious of the preciousness of the boy and the enormity of the task in keeping him safe. Sometimes the turn of events made her laugh, but most of the time it felt like a great anvil hung about her neck. If she didn’t already care deeply for the boy she couldn’t guarantee she wouldn’t have already run away.

“Osha?”

The small trembling voice brought her to her senses and she turned to find Rickon standing in the doorway. His fur coverlet was clutched around his shoulders and the light of the moon glinted off tear filled eyes and lit up a trembling lip.

“Tarra?” she said, concerned, “What’s wrong?”

She had renamed him with a wildling name when they were on the road, the name of a brother she had loved long ago. It was one of many things Rickon had submitted to in order to hide who he was. She had cut his hair short, coloured it darker and dressed him in the clothes of a poor boy who had been only too happy to trade velvet for rags. Rickon called her ‘Ma’ in public and learned a few of the odd ways of wildling speech, and he did it all without complaining.

“What’s wrong?” she asked again, when he didn’t answer.

He burst into tears and threw himself at her, burying his head in her shoulder. Hushing him, Osha wrapped her own fur around him and stepped into the house. The fire she had started was still burning fiercely, and she sat besides it.

“Quiet now, little one,” she soothed, rubbing Rickon’s back, “It’s alright. I’m here.”

Thankfully, Rickon didn’t cry for long, but he kept clinging to her nonetheless. She pulled him away slightly to look at his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“I had a dream about home,” he whispered, “But I couldn’t remember what father or mother or Robb looked like so they had no faces and Bran was there and he said they were waiting for me and I looked in the mirror and I didn’t have a face either and – ”

“It’s alright,” she said, stopping him before he could get hysterical, “It was only a dream, Rickon.”

She used his name deliberately, and the way he looked at her showed he had noticed. It wasn’t hard to interpret his dream; not only had he lost everything that meant anything to him, he also had lost his own identity. He was too young and impressionable for it not to affect him.

“But sometimes I do forget,” he said, his eyes wide, “What if one day I really can’t remember?”

Osha didn’t reply straight away, because she knew that one day he really might. She had been older than Bran when Tarra died and sometimes she couldn’t remember him, so Rickon might lose his family for good.

“You must try hard not to,” she said slowly, stroking his short hair, “Every night before you sleep you must try to remember them. We can talk about them sometimes if you want.”

“But you didn’t know Father or Sansa or Arya or Jon or Mother.”

“Then you can tell me about them,” she shrugged, “And maybe I will tell you about my brother one day. We’ll help each other.”

“And I won’t forget?” he said hopefully, his eyes dry, “I’ll remember?”

“I hope so. But one day you might not be able to see their faces when you close your eyes.”

“But-”

“Let me finish. Even if you can’t see their faces, you can remember what they made you feel. You can remember that you loved them and they loved you.”

He looked dubious, and Osha laughed. Kissing him on the forehead, she carried him back over to his bed and settled him down.

“You might not understand that yet,” she said, rearranging his coverlets, “But one day you will.”

“What did Bran mean in my dream when he said they were waiting for me?”

She did not like to think of what it could mean, that this brave and sombre little boy would be the last Stark to fall in this stupid war, in the winter yet to come. She could not think like that, and he couldn’t know. So instead she said this.  
“It means that your family are watching you, and helping the gods to look after you, and they love you so much that they will wait for you to be a man grown and old before they ever stop caring. That’s good to know, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he whispered, eyes already half closed from fatigue, shadows from the flames dancing across his thankfully untroubled face, “I love you, Osha. You’re my new family.”

And in a few minutes, he was sound asleep. Osha swallowed the lump in his throat and kissed him again on the forehead. 

“And I love you my little lord.”

She took one last paranoid look from the door, unsurprised to see Shaggy had ventured in from the forest and was sat as though guarding the house. His eyes glinted as he stared at her.

With a sigh, she fell into her own bed and turned to watch the fire burning in the grate. Before she closed her eyes, she prayed silently to the old gods that the boy might be given the chance to grow old that his siblings had been denied, and asked once again why she of all people had been charged with such a task. The future slept besides her on his humble cot, dressed in his humble clothing and covered in his humble furs, and dreamed of his dead family, and Osha swore anew that one day his humble situation would be cast aside and he would take the mantle that had been passed to him. And she would be besides him, every single step of the way.

Like he’d said, she was his family now.


End file.
